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The "Clactonian" of Le Havre and Its Bearing on the English Clactonian

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The 85 The "Clactonian" of Le Havre and its bearing on the English Clactonian by Milla Y. Ohel, Haifa and Claude Lechevalier, Paris with PI. VII-VIII Abstract The long-accepted Le Havre Clactonian is questioned on chronostratigraphic, technologic, and typologic grounds. A new interpretation is advanced envisaging the "Clactonian" of the Stations sous-Marines at Le Havre, northwestern France, as preparatory areas where Acheulean people acquired raw material and produced blanks. It is suggested to view the "Clacto­ nian" occurrences in England in the same manner. Namely, theselatterare also merely representations of preparatory areas of Acheulean flintknappers. Introduction The Palaeolithic sites called Stations sous-Marines are scattered along the beaches of Le Havre in a general northward direction from the modern port (fig. 1). The Collection of stone artifacts and bones from these beaches has been going on since 1883, the most remarkable result of which was the recognition of an Acheulean site by Romain (1914). This site came to be known later as Station Romain (fig. 1), now all covered by beach constructions. Most of the material from this site was destroyed in a bombardment of Le Havre during World War II; only a few specimens were saved, but some have been described and illustrated before in the literature. Following heavy storms in 1928 and 1929, a dozen underwater find spots (stations) were uncovered, and numerous artifacts have since been collected at low tide periods from the shore1. In addition, collection has been clone by mechanical scraping of underwater holows, mostly by Duteurtre (1930, 1942), Cayeux and Guyader (1957), and others. Following Breuil's description and definition of the Clactonian (especially Breuil, 1932, but see also his for­ mer references there on p. 126, footnote 1), the !arge, thick, bulb-protruding flakes collected from the stations were definitely ascribed to the Clactonian (e. g., Duteurtre, 1930, 1932, 1933, 1936, 1942; Breuil, 1932; Cayeux, 1963; Cayeux and Guyader, 1957), the very same Clactonian as at Clacton-on-sea and Swanscombe in England, and clearly of a different nature from the material of Station Romain. This renowned " Le Havre Clac­ tonian" was recently questioned by one of us (Lechevalier, 1972, 1974) who doubted the connection to the Clactonian and suggested the stations as some kind of frontline areas visited by Acheulean people on the then­ exposed shores. According to this latter suggestion, the stations were utilized for the primary flaking of !arge flakes by the very same Acheuleans who were inhabiting camps like Station Romain a little further inland at the feet of the cliffs. The Acheuleans would apparently go from their habitations to the nearby beaches where blocks of flint 1 One of us (M. 0.) is most grateful to Gerard Breton, Director of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Le Havre, who took the trouble to guide him very early in the morning to Le Becquet, where they strolled among the blocks in the slippery mud and even picked up several artifacts. 86 Mi/la Y. Ohel and Claude Lechevalier j·.:· .· : ·.<h ~' - 1==:111 JMiiiil ~1 ~11 J:::::](83 ~. ~13 1: -41+ ETI•. ~1+ jvv""IS ~10 ~1S .. • ... !" I')~ *!><t!e~s Fig. 1. Le Havre littoral, Station Romain, and the Stations sous-Marines: the morphological context. 1 to 7: Recent litto­ ral forms: 1. beach sands; 2. littoral cordon (pebbles); 3. littoral arrows (pebbles) and sand accumulations; 4. marine swamps; 5. bluff feet (breached clayey sands); 6. abrupt chalks (Cenomanian); 7. shrunk slope (by man); 8. ralus derived from an ancienr dead bluff; 9. weatherd Iimestone slope; 10. dry valleys; 11. Plateau de Caux. 12. sealevel curves from top of the substratum (sea curves: after Guyader); 13. ancient talweg of the Seine; 14. location of the Clactonian stations (n umbers of Duteurtre and Cayeux); 15. R: Station Romain; T: Place Thiers site; La Mare aux Clercs: old brickyards. (A dopted from Lechevalier 1974: Fig. 3.) arg1lcs a s1lcx C~noman1en Ga1zc et Gault Fig. 2. Mechan.ism of bluff collapsing at Le Havre littoraL Thin line: before collapsing; broken line: phase 1, sliding of the bluff feet; thick line: phase 2, collapsing. (AJopted from Lechevaher 1975: fig. 75 .1.) The "Clactonian" of Le Havre and its bearing on the English Clactonian 87 were plentiful, as a result of the weathering of the flint-bearing layers of the cliff (for the process of alteration and weathering at Le Havre littoral, see fig. 2). Presumably, the men would not have carried the heavy flint blocks back to their habitations. They had apparently used other flint rocks as anvils, as weil as hard sandstones resring on the bedrock of the beach, to strike off !arge blanks (moderate-sized and smaller ones also occur), which they would then carry back for further modification and shaping into handaxes and various typical Acheulean flake tools. Fortunately, those blanks that were left behind at the Stations became stuck and locked among the !arge blocks and stones and fastened, later, to their original, or almost original proveniences by the muddy sand ma­ trix. That they are presumably in situ, or only very slightly moved, may perhaps also be inferred from the thick seaweed coating the !arge sandstones among which the flakes are trapped. These coated sandstones are known to have constantly endured the most rigorous coastal storms at Le Havre for the last fifty years. Contrary to these steady blocks, the movable material is amassed in wide, thick, lengthy piles of rolled, smooth pebbles fur­ ther up on the littoral talus clearly beyond the boundary of the !arge blocks' areas (see fig. 1). In addition, most of the raw material of the blanks from the preliminary work spots (the Station sous-Marines) and of the finished products (flake tools and handaxes) from Station Romain is identical: a black-brownish flint with a thin greyish cortex- a unique color that can be easily recognized (usually not patinated). Wirhin the framework of a wide-scale study of the Clactonian in England and its relationship to the Acheulean, one of us (Ohel, 1977a) had the privilege of exploring the lithic material from the Stations sous-Ma­ rines at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle du Havre (MHN) and Guyader's collection (CG) at the Section Geo­ logique du Port Autonome du Havre. Given the results of this study and the ensuing interpretations of the Clac­ tonian (Ohel, 1977b), the recent reappraisal of the "Le Havre Clactonian" seems to acquire greater importance, perhaps even to the extent of a paradigm for reshaping the views-as traditionally held-about the phenomenon called Clactonian of England as weil (see also Ohel, 1978). The present paper will attempt to substantiate this line of interpretation by discussing first the current state of data evaluation from Le Havre, then the bearing of such an evaluation on the problern of the Clactonian in England. Reappraisal of old data and some Complementary Observations (C. L.) The Acheulean Site According to the first observations of Romain (1893), later confirmed by Babeau (1906), artifacts and bones were exposed among benches of "gravels" (flint and Kimmeridgian calcareous fragments) outcroping under­ neath sand veneers of the Le Havre strand, in the proximity of a "vast deposit of yellow clay or the plains' limon. ". With the aim to establish the nature of the deposits at the precise spot of the Le Havre Palaeolithic site (later called Station Romain), Romain attempted to reach a determination about the stratigraphy. Since it was " impossible to gain an exact cross section" he replaced it by " the succession of several deposits" (Romain 1894, 1914), assimilating the flint benches with the "superficial terrain." Obliged, undersuch conditions, to define the Stratigraphie position of the discovered objects, it is not much of a wonder that Romain could hardly be decisive on this point (fig. 3 ). The artifactual assemblage collected was reported to have consisted of some 600 pieces (see figures in Romain 1893, 1894, 1914; Babeau 1906), on 420 of which Romain (1906) furnished an account. He noted 40% of bifaces (handaxes) of diverse forms, the other specimens mentioned comprising choppers, side scrapers, blades, points, borers, and end scrapers. The flakes, "!arge and thick", and the waste chips were not accounted for although their association with the tools was stated as obvious. The bulk of this assemblage, the great majority of which was made of black-greyish Cenomanian flint, generally displayed artifacts of !arge dimensions, a few cores weighing up to 15 kg. Some rare pieces were made on pebbles. 88 Milla Y. Ohel and Claude Lechevallier Supposed position of remains , !853 18~ 1,0~ 1'14 Various flints and rocks I 2 I - ·~ I I Yellowish shelly sands I I I Small shellv bed I I 5 r-- Oxidized gray sands • Yellow clay !/ t! 1 Kimmeridgian clays 0 Fig. 3. Romain's cross secrion (The column on the right suggests the correlation of layers to a later section of Sta­ tion Romain: see figure 4.) (After Lechevalier 1974: fig. 2:1.) The interpretation advanced rested upon well-accepted criteria at the time: the bifaces were assigned to the Chellean or Acheulean (according to their degree of perfection) while the unifacial tools were ascribed to the Mousterian. Yet, there was no explanation to the fact tha t these very same periods were represented wi thin the limons of the de Caux plain by artifacts of the very sametype except that the latter were more "delicate". Fauna! remains were recovered as weil, often embedded in the "yellow clay". These were rather hardened in contrast with the bones observed at the plateau's brickyards. Most of the specimens were identified as those of probosciadians: molars, ribs, cranial fragments, and a nearly complete pelvis of Elephas primigenius (see photograph in Romain 1914), and molars belonging to E.
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